Seventeen
by Val Evenstar
Summary: Variations on a theme. How does one respond to being seventeen in and eighteen-and-above universe?
1. Chapter 1

**Seventeen**

**Variations on a Theme**

_by Val Evenstar_

* * *

When he turned seventeen, Pavel Andreievich Chekov dropped out of Starfleet Academy.

His advisor had raised an eyebrow when Chekov had announced his decision. He was, by now, used to the Russian's spontaneous and, to his mind, rather haphazard way of doing things. Two years ago Chekov had come in determined to command his own ship before he was twenty. Over the course of the next four months, he'd switched his concentration to engineering, then mathematics, then command again, and finally back to math. He'd skipped the required lower level courses, declaring that he would only take them when he absolutely had to, and rushed on to the advanced coursework. Lieutenant Richards glanced at the list of requirements in front of him and then at Chekov's schedule. Only the required math courses were left. The kid was bored, so he was dropping out.

Richards chuckled to himself. This was the first time he'd met a cadet who was leaving before he reached the age where most was cadets were admitted.

Across the desk from him, Chekov scowled. He must've interpreted the chuckle to mean that Richards wasn't taking him seriously. That was, Richards had to admit, partially correct.

"If you just stay and finish out these classes – you could do it in one and a half years, with summer courses – you'd be an officer when you graduate. Higher pay, more latitude in picking your work, and more leave time," he advised.

"Or I could enlist now. I would get my choice of assignment anyway, as much as any officer does, because I've had training that everyone else hasn't. And it would be much more exciting!"

"Or they could put you on grunt duty cleaning out labs, especially if you insist on thinking you're smarter than officers twice your age." Richards could hear Chekov thinking, _but what if I am?_ He sighed. "Now since I can already see that you're not going to listen to me, let me tell you something. Yeah, you're young, impatient, and too smart for your own good, and you want to get away from this old man who's lecturing you like he thinks he knows something. Here's a surprise: _I actually do_. You're a damn fool for throwing your degree away, and if you can't swallow that Russian pride of yours and listen and learn from old folks like me, you're going to end up mouthing off to a Klingon someday and ending up mincemeat." If the Klingon could actually understand Chekov's accent, that is. "Possibly the only good thing about you dropping out is that I only have to see your sorry face one more time, Cadet."

"One more time, sir?" Chekov said sourly.

Richards handed him a data pad and said, "You still need parental permission. Get this signed, and you can leave. Dismissed, Cadet."

Chekov gave a barely passable salute, grabbed the pad, and left, his normally pale skin bright pink. The door had just closed when Richards heard a torrent of Russian that he bet wasn't gratitude for his advice.

* * *

**A/N: **This started off as a oneshot and then grew a little too large.

This is partly me taking advantage of fiction to complain about how much being 17 in and 18 and above world sucks.

And this is partly taking a look at a new/old character – in the series, the only really notable thing about Chekov is that he's Russian and good for some comic relief now and then. Other that that, he's really quite random. In the movie, I suppose they had to make him a genius in order to get him in the script at all, if they wanted to stick to the canon ages. But it was a pretty interesting new take on a familiar (yet rather underdeveloped) character, so I thought I'd see if I could reconcile the two a little more.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey! Kid!"

Chekov knew it was directed at him, but he just tugged on his jacket and kept walking.

"Kid! Yo, genius boy!"

Flattered, Chekov spared a glance at the cadet yelling at him. It had to be a cadet, he knew; they were still within walking distance of the Academy and even though he was in civvies Chekov thought he recognized the man from one of his smaller math classes.

"Hey there," he responded, slightly unsure of what a classmate would want with him outside help on assignments. He had a few friends, sure, but mostly they were from his barrack or the Russian Cadet Association. None of them was among the three cadets coming towards him. They had been drinking, if he was any judge of things, but since it was a weeknight they were just tipsy, in order to appear sober at any surprise inspections.

"Killer of a test yesterday, huh? I mean, how're we supposed to remember all that junk? The way she teaches, it's a wonder anyone got more than half the questions right. Sure, there's always a couple of morons who get ninety fives while the rest of us are at thirty, but for real. Sometimes life's a pain, you know?" The cadets had caught up to Chekov now, and the one speaking gave him a conspiratorial nudge in the ribs.

Chekov thought back to the test. It had been difficult, but he had ended up being one of the 'morons' who'd scored above ninety. He forced a tolerant smile onto his face. "Yeah, sure," he said. "It was awful. Nice to see you, though, have a good night then."

He tried to move past the group but one of the other cadets grabbed his arm. "You in Abstract, man? That the class Dan is always going on about?"

"Complaining, you mean!" hooted his friend.

"Yes," Chekov said shortly.

"No kidding! You can't be older than my kid brother. Laziest lump I ever saw, eighteen and sits around playing sims and picking his nose all day. How old are you, kid?"

Normally, Chekov didn't answer this question because people never knew what to make of his answer. But today was different. "It's my birthday," he said, proudly. "I'm seventeen. And now I have to go meet some friends for a drink to celebrate." He tried to leave again. This time, their hoots of laughter stopped him.

"Seventeen! A baby in _Chou's_ classes?"

"So that's why you sound so funny, you're still learning how to talk!"

"All grown up now and going to a bar, huh? No chance you'll get in, not that you could stomach more than milk anyway!"

A birthday, Chekov thought in the few seconds of clarity that always came before threw it all to heck and lost his temper, was supposed to be a time for celebration. A time to look back a year and see how far he had come and what new heights he had reached. It was not a time to be mocked by ignorant men who judged based on a number.

It was probably also not the best time for a fistfight, but Chekov didn't care. His age was somewhat of a sensitive spot, and he'd gotten into fights over it before. He rarely won, being young and slender, but it taught him not to fear older fighters. Even if there were three of them, but Chekov wasn't really counting when he hit the first cadet. All he knew was that it was his birthday and he would not stand around being insulted by a bunch of drunks.

Chekov lost his temper easily, but he did not lose it often simply because he usually had no reason to be angry. When he did, though, his father compared him to Ivan the Terrible. But rage alone was not enough to defeat three older men in a fight where size and skill were not on his side. Chekov ended up spending the rest of the night in solitary confinement after getting treated for two broken ribs and a split lip.

It was then that he decided to quit. The year was almost over; he'd finish his classes and then enlist the normal way. The other cadets might outrank him in the end, but _he_ would be the experienced one. And hopefully, he thought, gingerly feeling his ribs, by that time he might know how to fight more than one opponent.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry, I meant to put this up earlier but got sidetracked. I don't really like this segment, but kept it anyway. Chekov has been known to want to start fights over insults in the series, so I don't think this is too implausible, but it doesn't really flow right here. The next part should make up for this, though.


	3. Chapter 3

It was his last night out with the boys – his roommate, best Russian pals and his marathon training partner – a time to rehash the triumphs of the year and make plans for the summer. And, of course, drink a lot and try to pick up pretty girls.

Chekov had been persuaded not to have his favorite vodka because tonight they would do things North American style. It was also only something old men drank, according to his roommate, a Canadian named Jack. Ivan and Sasha were fond of vodka too but had decided to go along with Jack's idea because, as they'd explained to Chekov, they'd all been drinking the stuff since thirteen anyway and unless the Klingons took out Russia there was likely to be plenty more of it in the future. So even though there was only one native North American in the group, they would all drink American beer tonight to celebrate the end of another year.

"I'm still mad at you, you know," Martin told Chekov suddenly.

Chekov's brow wrinkled as he processed his friend's words. Martin was only halfway through his first beer, and even though he was a lightweight, like Chekov, there was no way it was just the alcohol talking. And the Ethiopian wasn't usually that talkative, so it must've been something important.

"For mile twenty-four, you dolt. Or have you forgotten already?"

Oh. Of course. He and Martin had run together for the first twenty-four miles of the Starfleet Academy Marathon, then with two miles left to go, Chekov had surged ahead while a tiring Martin cursed at him under his breath. The plan had been to finish the race together in the top ten, but when Chekov had realized that he actually had a chance to win...

Chekov took another swallow of his beer and shrugged. He didn't regret it. Not many people won marathons, and they were almost never seventeen year old boys. That would teach the older cadets some respect, he had thought. Martin would hate him for another year – with Chekov leaving and the second-place winner graduating, he had the best chance of capturing the title next year – but that was all right.

"It's not like you didn't get payback," Chekov reminded him.

Martin laughed, and addressed the group: "Anyone got images of this kid the day after? I need them for blackmail."

The others laughed uproariously and Chekov's face flushed, remembering. Jack noticed and pointed it out. "He was about that colour, yeah, but maybe a little more red. And all over! Russians can't take the heat, eh?"

If it had been anyone else, Chekov would have taken offense, but the beer had put him in good spirits and, in hindsight, it _had_ been funny.

"Even I wouldn't have spent two days in sickbay for sunburn," Ivan declared smugly. Chekov cast him a doubtful glance; Ivan was even paler than him.

"Some of those were second-degree burns," he said defensively.

"Just because you forgot to use sunblock! On a planet where even Martin got a little crispy!" Jack hooted.

Chekov gave up and laughed with the others.

"Oh the stupidity of man," Sasha said with a dramatic sigh.

"Like in Intro Philosophy where you went on and on about Zephram Cochrane – who is as much a philosopher as I am the tsar - when the commander asked about Kant?" said Ivan slyly.

Now it was Sasha's turn to make excuses, and Jack finished his first beer and ordered another round. The banter continued, and after an hour or so the world started becoming pleasantly fuzzy. Then Chekov noticed the girl. She was about medium height with pale skin and blonde hair, in a dress which possibly had too many sequins to be considered stylish. But she was attractive, and not surrounded by dozens of other girls, which told Chekov's dulled mind that the odds of picking her up were significantly higher than usual.

Not that any of the group had ever had much luck with the ladies. Ivan and Sasha were too pale to fit into the role of either 'dark, mysterious foreigner' or 'tan American farmboy'. Martin felt he had been rejected one too many times because he claimed "distance runners are only sexy in Ethiopia", but he had never agreed to let Chekov go there with him to test that theory. And Chekov, for all his brains, was still an awkward teenager, and girls tended to focus more on the 'child' part of 'child genius' and treat him like some cute stuffed toy. Jack was the only one of them who really had a chance, with his boisterous personality and easy smile, but he usually passed out before he got beyond flirting.

Ivan noticed what Chekov was looking at and gave an appreciative whistle. "She Russian, you think?" he asked.

Chekov shrugged. Despite his often wild claims regarding Russian accomplishments, he really didn't care when it came to girls.

"Not elegant enough," Sasha judged. "Pretty, though."

Jack just muttered something about their stupid Russian superiority complex and got another beer. "If Russians are so great, why do I get all the girls, huh?" he asked.

Ivan laughed at him. "In Moscow, you wouldn't have a chance."

Jack snorted. "Well, here, you guys don't have a chance."

"Not true!" Sasha exclaimed in instant denial.

"You wanna bet?"

"Yeah, I 'wanna bet'!"

Martin broke into spasms of laughter at Sasha's accented pronunciation. "Vanna bit?" he giggled in imitation, and Chekov whacked him. It was no use; Martin was too far gone.

"Fine," Jack said. "If Pavel can get her over here without bribing her, I'll buy them both a drink. And I'll go to Moscow with you this summer to prove you wrong. And if not, you buy _all_ the drinks next time."

"Do it, Pavel," Ivan urged. "Then we get to see this American - "

"_Canadian_," Jack corrected harshly.

" - trying to tell us that Texas is bigger than Siberia and getting laughed out of the Red Square. And I bet he freezes in summer in Murmansk."

"You wanna bet?" Jack growled pleasantly. Chekov thought that he secretly did want to go to Russia; his fascination for travel had been the main reason he'd joined Starfleet, and he'd heard enough of Chekov's homesick monologues to know quite a bit about the country and culture.

"Yeah, I wanna bet!" Ivan retorted in his perfect American English at the same time Martin shouted out another Sasha imitation.

Chekov rolled his eyes and got up. If Ivan ever started betting seriously, he'd be a pauper within a week. "I'll be back soon," he announced, to the general amusement of his friends. "And I hope you're not still acting like teenagers when I get back."

Their uproarious laughter followed him away from the bar. Chekov ignored them and tried to think of a pickup line; Jack sometimes amused himself by thinking of them while he was 'doing homework', but Chekov always thought they sounded ridiculous. He was sure he could do better. If he was sober, which he wasn't, so he decided it would be simplest just to go up to the girl and offer to buy her a drink.

"I don't know," she said, looking him over. "Can you?"

While legally the answer to that was no, Chekov ignored that technicality and said that yes, it would be his pleasure. She said that her name was Rachel and that she studied at the Starfleet Medical School.

"I am Pavel Chekov," he said as they made their way over to the bar, "and I am a navigator on the _Enterprise_." That wasn't really true – he had just received his assignment to the ship this morning, as a cartographer – but he was pretty sure he would end up as a navigator within three months. Especially since he had, contrary to Richards' predictions, been commissioned as an ensign, not a yeoman.

"Aren't you a little young?" she asked dubiously.

"No, of course not," Chekov said heatedly, waving the bartender over. "I'm going to be eighteen soon, and -"

"Eighteen? What're you doing in my bar, kid?"

Oops.

Chekov thought, as he protested and waved Ivan's ID at the bartender, that perhaps he'd had a little more to drink than was good for him. Ordinarily, he was sure, he would not make a mistake of such catastrophic proportions.

"I guess you can't buy me a drink after all," Rachel said, and Chekov wasn't surprised to see an American farmboy-type cadet smoothly take advantage of the situation and offer to pay instead.

Chekov tried glaring at him, but the cadet just turned away and said, "The name's Kirk. James Kirk," and by then Chekov had more pressing concerns on his mind. Specifically, the bouncer the bartender had summoned, who was easily twice his weight and looked ferocious enough to be of Klingon descent.

Since his brain was still functioning enough to tell him that the odds of surviving a fight with this guy would be zero at best, Chekov left. Why, he thought as he collapsed on a bench outside, couldn't he just look older? Or find some way of aging faster? He was trapped behind a child's face in an adult world.

That face was already burning with shame at his stupidity, and even though he might forget it after tonight, the others would never let him live this one down.

Chekov groaned, and fervently wished that he could pass out and wake up twenty-one. And not hung over.

* * *

**A/N: **This is really different from what I usually write. I thought it was funny, though :) I just wish there was a way I could insert a three-second pause after the 'oops'.

Also, for the record, I think that Chekov winning a marathon is ridiculous. Whoever wrote that in the bio was not a runner.


	4. Chapter 4

Chekov was excited. Today would be his first shift on the bridge as a navigator. And after only three weeks! Well, two in space and one at starbase. It was the ship's maiden cruise – or test run, to be exact, as the official maiden voyage only commenced when the captain came aboard. Usually brand new ships had lots of kinks to work out, so to avoid embarrassment after elaborate christening ceremonies, a skeleton crew of mostly trainees under the first officer took the ship for a test drive. Today they were passing through a fairly unexciting – okay, downright boring – area of space. And it was the 'night' shift, which no senior officer ever wanted. But it was what Chekov had wanted for a long time, and he was sure it would be fantastic.

He stepped onto the bridge and was suddenly unsure of what to do. The only other times he'd been here were at his initial tour of the ship and once when he had accompanied the chief navigator and the other trainees to become familiarized with the station.

"Ensign Chekov reporting for duty, sir!" he said to the officer in charge, a Commander Shultz. The commander just nodded at him, and the tired navigator relinquished his post with a smile.

The helmsman gave him a sideways glance. Chekov smiled at him and held out his hand. "Pavel Chekov," he said by way of introduction.

The helmsman shook his hand. "Hikaru Sulu," he said, and went back to watching the starlines flying past the front of the ship.

Chekov shrugged – to each his own – and carefully input his authorization code. He could swear that all the computers on board hated him. It wasn't his fault their voice-processing software couldn't keep up with him.

After checking to make sure all was well with the ship's course, he sat back to enjoy the ride, occasionally making a minor adjustment or manually solving equations just for the heck of it. There really wasn't that much to do except gather data for new maps. In preparation for tonight, the chief navigator had called the ensign to his office, handed him a data pad with the course details, and warned him not to do anything stupid or make any changes. The chief was an intimidating man, and since Chekov wanted his job he'd decided to try to stay on the chief's good side so that he wouldn't be too sore when Chekov eventually took over his position.

The chief was a careful man, though, and did his job well. So Chekov was as shocked as everyone else when the _Enterprise_ suddenly dropped out of warp.

There was a moment of silence as the crew came to terms with this new development – not good, Chekov thought, as he instinctively raised the shields. If this was an ambush we'd have been hit already.

The commander must have come to the same conclusion, because he said, "Engineering, report!"

As the chief engineer explained that the engines had been functioning properly but the sudden change had induced some kind of feedback, Chekov rapidly went over his charts. There was nothing in the region close by; the maps had been made by a scientific vessel that had been sent to study an isolated Type I supernova a few years back...

How many years ago? Chekov felt his heart beat faster as a suspicion formed in his mind. Four years ago. An A star, about twenty-one solar masses. It would have collapsed into a neutron star about.... Chekov pulled out a stylus and started doing the math...six months ago.

"Commander?" he said, interrupting Sulu's report. "Commander, it is a neutron star. The gravitational well must have been strong enough to interfere with the warp field."

"I see it now," the science officer reported.

Sulu studied the diagram that had been transferred to his display, and announced: "We need to get out of here before we get any closer."

Shultz nodded. "Make it so, Mr. Sulu." He told the communications officer to inform the first officer of the situation, and went back to talking with Engineering.

Chekov worriedly did a few calculations, and his brow wrinkled as he eyed the results. This was more serious than he'd thought.

"We must avoid the polar plane," he told Sulu. "Radiation levels are dangerous there. And we are very much closer than we should be. I am not sure if the engine power will be enough to get us out."

Of course, his calculations had been based on estimates. He started inputting the proper parameters to the computer.

"We can't go straight out, then," Sulu said.

"Yes, yes!" Chekov agreed. "We need something like a - "

"Politician's orbit." Sulu said, and the navigator nodded vigorously. "While staying away from the poles," Sulu murmured. "This may be tricky. Keep me updated with the maps."

Chekov went to work while Sulu updated the commander and started the maneuver. The politician's orbit had some formal name to it, but very few people used it. It was the orbit Captain Keller used to keep his shuttle from drifting into a black hole for two years after he had been marooned there for ... well, there was some legend around it, but Chekov didn't care to remember right now. The important thing for the moment was that it would skirt the edges of the gravitational pull until the ship gained enough momentum to keep from going backwards. Since the impulse engines were still working, the _Enterprise_ should be able to escape as well.

"Give me all you've got, Engineering," Sulu said, his dark eyes intense as he delicately maneuvered the ship.

The crew watched tensely. Chekov finished the last equation. "We'll make it," he said, relieved. Sulu nodded but did not break his concentration.

After ten more minutes of careful piloting, Sulu leaned back and announced, "We're out!"

"Good work, Mr. Sulu," Shultz said, and the bridge went back to normal.

Chekov started work on getting the _Enterprise_ back on course while the commander talked to Engineering about getting the warp drive back on line. Then the bridge doors swished open and the first officer, Commander Doyle, stepped in.

"What's going on, Commander?" he asked.

Shultz briefed him, and the first officer listened intently, nodding occasionally. "Carry on, Mr. Shultz," he said finally. "Helmsman, navigator – come see me after your shift ends."

Chekov swallowed nervously. "Aye, sir," he chorused with Sulu.

It was not very realistic, he thought later as he and Sulu stood in the captain's ready-room, to expect the first officer to overlook his drastic mistake. A downright stupid mistake as well, he knew, and one that he should have known to avoid. He said as much to the first officer, when he asked what had happened. Doyle merely nodded and went on to ask them about how they'd gotten the _Enterprise_ safely away.

When they finished their narration, the first officer asked a few questions to clarify their roles in the mishap. Yes, it was my fault, but Sulu saved the day and I played backup singer, Chekov explained, but in different terms of course. Sulu, for his part, was more than generous in praising Chekov for his share in the solution, and said that mistakes were bound to happen if navigators were given dated information.

The first officer considered this, and nodded. Then he turned to Chekov. "How old are you?" he asked, curious.

Chekov inwardly sighed. He hadn't made a mistake because he was young; he'd done it because he was careless. And he didn't want to hide behind his age as an excuse. "Twenty, sir," he said, then instantly regretted it. If he was going to serve on this ship for a while, Doyle was bound to find out about this eventually, and _that_ would be an awkward conversation.

"Hmmm," Doyle considered. Then he nodded briskly. "Good work, Sulu, Chekov. I want you both on day shift starting next week. Dismissed."

The two young men left the ready room together, surprised at the unexpected outcome. Chekov was a little shocked; he had hardly expected a commendation. It was quite a different from the Academy, where they were impressed with the importance of not making mistakes. Here, it was given that mistakes would happen, and the important thing was working past them and learning from them.

"Do you like fencing?" Sulu asked unexpectedly, and Chekov replied that he'd never really tried it.

That was how, after dinner/breakfast in the mess, Chekov found himself being little more than a practice dummy with a foil and nerve endings while Sulu demonstrated his prowess, and how Sulu found himself out of breath after casually telling Chekov that there were no rules in a real fight, which resulted in him chasing Chekov around the ship's track and most of the smaller gyms before he collapsed, panting, after less than four kilometers. And since Chekov was very bruised but not breathing hard and Sulu was unmarked but panting heavily, they called it even and left good friends.

* * *

**A/N:** The idea that gravity affects ships traveling at warp is taken from Star Wars. Or the expanded universe, at any rate. There's these cool interceptor ships that can drag others out of hyperspace by creating a gravitational well. I forget what they're called, though.

Also, neutron stars are far from harmless. The only thing denser than them is black holes, so go figure.

I'm going to say that Doyle was first officer until he was killed when the ship came out near Vulcan, until someone tells me otherwise (or tells me his real name).


	5. Chapter 5

The next week, all hell broke loose. First a whole bunch of cadets had swarmed aboard the ship to supplement the skeleton crew – funny how he thought of them as the naïve ones now – and one of them had, for no seeming reason, been promoted to first officer after the _Enterprise_ had come out of warp near Vulcan and the biggest, ugliest ship Chekov had ever seen. Said ship was now drilling into the planet while said first officer – and Sulu – were fighting evil aliens on the drill.

Chekov was monitoring their locations worriedly when suddenly the two men started falling. At a rate which indicated they weren't using parachutes, a fact which was confirmed by the frantically yelling Kirk. The transporter technician was trying to regain a lock on their position, but unless he adjusted for the fact that the planet was collapsing, changing the rate at which the local gravitational acceleration changed, he wasn't going to get anywhere. Chekov realized, as he leapt out of his chair and rushed to the lift, that the technician didn't know that. It wasn't common knowledge yet what the drill was for; as far as Chekov knew, only he and Commander Spock were capable of rescuing Kirk and Sulu. And Spock had more important things to do at the moment. Besides, Chekov could run faster.

He crashed into the transporter room and pushed the technician aside, eyes on the controls as he desperately tried to remember his transportation theory class from two semesters ago. He'd taken it for fun, found out that the physics was relatively simple even though the field was very promising, and kept attending the last half of the class even though it was practical and boring. The only reason he hadn't skipped that part was because Jack had agreed to take him to Canada for spring break if he helped him create a one-man transporter unit in their closet. Jack was, at the time, interested in a girl who lived in France, and Chekov had agreed because he preferred snowy mountains to sandy beaches. Things had gone well until they'd tested it on a Vulcan commander's teddy bear. Jack had failed to mention that it was alive and had six-inch fangs. The Vulcan never found out who had kidnapped his pet for a night, and Chekov sincerely hoped he never did. The scars on his arms had been punishment enough.

The physics, Chekov thought as he frantically started work, was probably not as valuable to him now as the practical skills he had learned; how to operate the transporter, for one, and how to modify its targeting functions as he was doing now. He'd always thought the engineering aspect of things to be inferior to the pure physics, but he was learning that the real world held a lot of surprises.

His heart was thumping as hard as it would in any sprint, and he kept a wary eye on Kirk and Sulu's fall as he worked. Only seconds left now, but he couldn't think of the consequences. He just had to solve the problem, and get the lock – now! Chekov didn't spare a second to confirm the computer's claim, just punched the button to energize. Seconds later, Kirk and Sulu appeared on the pad.

Chekov shouted in excitement and relief – and in Russian, most likely – as he saw Sulu was safe. It had been close, but they were back. Maybe, he thought with some self-importance, seventeen-year-old boys were capable of saving the day once in a while.

He promptly lost all egoistic feelings five minutes later as he stared blankly at the transporter controls, hands trembling, as he lost Spock's mother. He hadn't been fast enough, and it had been so _sudden; _there hardly been time to register her fall before it was over. Forget about his teddy bear, Spock really had a reason to hate him now.

He couldn't bear to look the commander in the eye, or see the other Vulcans standing there like emotionless stone statues, and so he fled the room. He didn't go back to the bridge - they would've called in another navigator by now to replace him – and so he headed to Sickbay to check on Hikaru.

The pilot was, to Chekov's relief, unharmed and only recovering from a massive adrenaline rush, which left him more talkative than usual. He told Chekov about the Romulans, who were much stronger than he'd expected, and the space jump, and how Kirk had jumped off the drill to save him.

"We lost Engineer Olsen, though," he added somberly. "He had the charges. It was so fast, he just hit the drill, couldn't get a good enough grip and ended up .... well, under it."

Chekov nodded, and then quietly told how he had failed to save Spock's mother.

Sulu was silent for a moment after Chekov finished, trying to gauge how to respond. Obviously the kid hadn't had to deal with consequences this dramatic before; Sulu had come to terms with death a while ago, but there was no easy way to put it. He hated cliché, but finally settled with saying, "It's not your fault."

Chekov looked him in the eye for the first time, and Sulu was taken back by the intensity and confusion in his look. He held up a hand to silence the Russian before he started talking – once he started, he usually kept going for a while – and said, "You did your best to save her, but sometimes no matter how hard we try we just _can't_. And in this job, you'll find that not everything goes our way, even on the best of days. Mistakes cost lives. It could be your own, like Olsen's, or it could be someone else. Or a lot of someone elses. Even when you don't make mistakes, people can die. It's just life, Pavel, and space. You've just got to go on and keep doing your job. You could turn cynical if you wanted, like the doctor – though I'd stop hanging out with you if you did – or you could be your usual exuberant self, but you go on either way."

Chekov nodded slowly. "Thank you. I understand." Then he smiled a little. "I think that is the longest I have ever heard you talk, Hikaru."

Sulu grinned. "That's just because you never shut up." Chekov laughed, and whacked Sulu, who winced, glared at Chekov, and told him to stop beating up the patients and get back to the bridge.

* * *

Chekov had no idea that life on the Enterprise was going to be so unpredictable. They were now under their third captain in thirty-six hours and had just gotten a new crew member. While they were traveling at warp speed. The prominent question on Chekov's mind was, how did they _do_ it? Beaming on to a ship going at high warp – the implications for that kind of discovery were incredible! Chekov was determined to track down the Scottish engineer as soon as he got off his shift and ask for a detailed explanation. Just thinking of all the things that would be possible now made him giddy with excitement. Even though right now the Romulan ship was headed towards Earth and the _Enterprise_ was the only ship nearby....well, that was exciting too, but more of the scary variety.

Advanced transporter physics wasn't going to get them out of this one. Unless they beamed a bomb onto Nero's ship while he was traveling at warp with his shields down. Chekov worked on this idea for a few minutes before finding that, given Nero's destination and last known trajectory, there were about five hundred ways he could get there, and the Enterprise didn't have that kind of ammo to waste shooting in the dark.

So if they couldn't shoot at Nero from afar, they would need to get closer. Preferably without the Romulan seeing them, as he had a distinct advantage in weapons and shields. But the _Enterprise_ would be in its own solar system, on home territory. Unless Nero had information from the future, the _Enterprise_ crew surely knew more about its own system and could take advantage of it.

Then if Kirk and Spock managed to beam aboard Nero's ship like they were discussing, and if there really was a Federation ship inside the Romulan one, all they really needed was a place to ambush Nero. Somewhere they couldn't be detected. Somewhere like...

Chekov leapt from his chair and grabbed a stylus, headed for the clearboard at the rear of the bridge. It was, predictably enough, one of his favorite things about the bridge. He even had a corner of his own neatly labeled in Cyrillic script. Quickly he erased some of his old calculations and discreetly rubbed away some of the minor equations Spock had been working on; he was going to need more space than usual for this one. He started working, drawing in equations for the computer to solve and tapping the board to plug in constants and start simulations as needed. Chekov loved clearboards; at the Academy he had gotten into trouble for breaking into lecture halls late at night to do his assignments on them. He was allowed a small notebook sized one of his own, but he'd really wanted a wall-sized one like they had in classrooms. The one on the bridge was only quarter wall-sized, but it was better than nothing. It still made it relatively easy to do complicated math when the need arose, like it often did on the bridge.

Chekov was surprised how tricky the math did turn out for such a simple idea. As he bounded over to the Captain to explain what he'd done, he thought that it really shouldn't have been that complicated. He wanted to go over the intricacies of the calculations, but had learned a while ago that command types weren't interested in the procedure as much as the results, so he tried to get to those as fast as possible. Chekov was a little disconcerted by the blank stares they were giving him; had he made some stupid mistake that they couldn't bear pointing out to him? Or was he really being that unclear? He plowed on anyway, and slowly he saw understanding begin to dawn.

There was a short silence after he finished, and Chekov looked around triumphantly. The captain thought it was a good idea, and the Scottish engineer had a similar expression, and the doctor...

Chekov almost rolled his eyes; he could see The Question coming.

"How old are you, kid?" the doctor demanded.

"Seventeen, sir," he replied, without hesitation.

The doctor seemed at a loss for words, so he just muttered sarcastically, "Oh, good, he's seventeen."

Chekov smiled to himself. So he was seventeen. He was also a member of Starfleet's best ship, and his opinion really mattered. For the first time, Chekov was starting to see that the two could go together very successfully indeed.

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**A/N:** Yay! A bit of cheesiness on the ending, but so what. Author's notes are posted on my blog if you are curious about why I wrote what I did. For any who are interested, I wrote a kind of epilogue prompted by 's review that I will post soon. It features Scotty, Chekov, scotch, vodka, and physics, and should be highly entertaining. So please keep an eye out for it if you enjoyed this story. Thanks for all the kind reviews, everyone, and I wouldn't mind some more if you feel thus inclined :)


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